At the last moment Selma refused to sit with her brother and mother, and slipped away to be with Lovey and Ezra, Floyd and Pauline, who sat together in the first row of the pews reserved for the Negroes of Beulah Land. She had rested when tired in their arms and been carried home safely by the least known of them, and so she chose now to endure this awful hour with them, a spot of white in a curtain of black.

When the service in the church ended, the ones inside joined the ones who had been forced to wait and listen outside, and all went together to the final ceremony at the grave. The last words were read and spoken. The coffin was lowered into the ground. As the first earth was shoveled over it, the song of the Beulah Land slaves started as a moaning hum and then broke into worded song. They sang out their despair at death and hope of resurrection—their own as much as Arnold Kendrick’s. But everyone took the singing as a sign of devotion to the dead master. Ritual serves more than one purpose.

They got back to Beulah Land late in the afternoon: They fed and milked the cows, fed the horses and hogs and fowl. Then they built fires and cooked, and when food was ready, ate hugely, comforted in the knowledge that they were not the new ghost in the night.

20

After the funeral Deborah took full charge of Beulah Land. Having so often chafed as she observed the convention of deferring to her husband and being guided by him, she now gloried in her true self. She more than enjoyed command; it was what she had been born to do. She could not, of course, see to everything but—so far, at any rate—she and Roscoe Elk worked well together. He saw her mettle, and while assuming new authority, was careful not to presume or encroach on hers.